As reported by the Washington Post, partner Andy Levy and attorney Lauren Kelleher won a reversal of client Sophia Negroponte’s murder conviction in a Maryland appeals court. The Appellate Court of Maryland threw out Ms. Negroponte’s conviction and 35-year sentence and remanded the case to Montgomery County for a new trial. In its opinion the three-judge panel unanimously agreed with BGL’s argument that the jury in Ms. Negroponte’s first trial was impermissibly allowed to hear portions of her interrogation in which the detectives directly attacked Ms. Negroponte’s credibility as well as testimony from a prosecution expert witness who did the same.
Ms. Negroponte was convicted of second-degree murder in January 2023 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The trial in Montgomery Circuit Court focused heavily on whether she purposely tried to kill the victim or cut him accidentally during a drunken fight.
As Andy explained to The Washington Post, the detectives’ opinions were something that should have been redacted for a fair trial – an assertion echoed by the Appellate Court of Maryland.
Andy told the Post that the reversal centered on whether it’s proper to introduce opinions about a defendant’s credibility during a trial. He emphasized that the duty of making that judgment should be the burden of the jury – particularly in a case where there was a difference between Ms. Negroponte’s account and testimony from the only other witness.
“It’s just a red line that the courts in Maryland have drawn,” Andy said. “The jury is the one who decides who to believe…Opinions are not evidence.”
“Her credibility was really at issue in this case,” Andy continued.
Read the full Washington Post story here.
ABOUT ANDY LEVY
Andy is widely regarded as one of Maryland’s premier trial and appellate lawyers, equally comfortable in civil and criminal courtrooms, before a jury, judge, or arbitrator. He is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, one of the few lawyers in the country to have been inducted as a Fellow of both organizations. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America in nine categories and is among a distinguished group of attorneys to have been named in Best Lawyers for twenty years. He has also been consistently recognized by Chambers USA and has been recognized by Maryland Super Lawyers each year since 1999. Andy is the 2020 recipient of the Maryland State Bar Association Criminal Law & Practice Section Robert C. Heeney Award for lifetime achievement in the field of criminal law and practice, and the Lorraine Sheehan Lifetime Achievement Award from Disability Rights Maryland. Learn more about Andy here.
ABOUT LAUREN KELLEHER
Lauren joined Brown, Goldstein & Levy in February 2022. Before joining the firm, she served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division where she investigated and litigated against pharmaceutical companies for their role in the opioid epidemic, including work on the Purdue bankruptcy. She also has experience representing individuals and groups of plaintiffs in workplace discrimination and harassment cases as well as consumers in products and financial services litigation. Lauren was selected to The Best Lawyers in America’s “Ones to Watch” list for 2024 for her exemplary work in civil rights law. Read more about Lauren here.
Founded in 1982, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a law firm based in Baltimore, Maryland, with an office in Washington, D.C. The firm is nationally recognized in a wide variety of practice areas, including complex civil and commercial litigation, civil rights, health care, family law, and criminal defense. Above all else, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a client-centered law firm that brings decades of experience and passionate, effective advocacy to your fight for justice.